The primary reason for the church closings in Constantinople was in reaction to what was taking place in Byzantine Italy where the Normans were closing Byzantine churches and monasteries by the score and forbidding the use of leavened bread and forcing the priests to use unleavened. The issue of leavened vs unleavened bread became a matter forced on the attention of both Churches by the Normans in Italy. To be fair to the Popes, at this time they were vacillating over their support for the Normans but that problem was soon solved when the Normans took over the papal throne and installed a Norman Pope. Henceforth the Normans were in control of the Church of Rome.

I'm really rather amazed at the extent to which the old, familiar polemics still continue to displace real historical research and insight. Rather than recount the events of the long period of estrangement that eventually led to the separation (a separation that did not begin in 1054, any more than the Roman Empire "fell" in 476), I will just note that the schism came on gradually, and that there was more than enough fault to go around on both sides. So I would recommend that everyone drop the "who did what to whom" line of questioning, and simply return to the present-day problems of the Romanian Churches.

The present problems in Romania are due to the fact that the Romanian Orthodox Church don't try to start a real dialogue with the Greek-Catholic Church on the issue of the properties given by the communists to the orthodox.

Dearest Father Ambrose,


That was a very fair presentation on the issue of unleavened bread. Thank you.

Humbly,
Marduk

Azymes was an excuse for, not the cause of the closing of the Latin churches in Constantinople. Commercial and political interests were, as always, well to the fore.

Agreed. But, in a spirit of Christian charity, you should just forget about it, stop contesting the matter, and rebuild your churches from scratch. This is, in fact, what Christians are required to do. As the Gospel from last Sunday (new calendar) noted, it is easy to love those who love you; even the wicked do that. Loving those who hate you is the mark of the Christian. Do not forget the offense, but forgive it. Build your Church and live exemplary lives, which will gain you treasures in heaven, and, perhaps, shame the Orthodox into admitting their fault.

And part of building your Church and living exemplary lives would be restoring the fullness of your Tradition, in accordance with the repeated directives of the Holy See to eliminate all latinizations and fall accretions. There is no excuse for adopting Latin practices for the purpose of differentiating yourselves from the Orthodox, and such abuses ought to stop.

The Romanian Catholics can pray and pursue the recovery of their churches while loving their neighbor, IMO.


It would be an abuse - on the moral order - only if they are actually using it to differentiate themselves from the Orthodox (because there would be an element of spite involved). If they accept these changes sincerely for the spiritual benefit of their Church, then it wouldn't be an abuse. Liturgy can evolve to meet the needs of the Church. It's happened many times in the past, even within EO'xy, and I don't see why we should expect that it won't or shouldn't happen in the future. Once again, I should stress that if this was a Synodal decision, then it is wholly proper.

Blessings

They can, but it is my opinion that they should not try.

It would be an abuse - on the moral order - only if they are actually using it to differentiate themselves from the Orthodox (because there would be an element of spite involved). If they accept these changes sincerely for the spiritual benefit of their Church, then it wouldn't be an abuse.





Not all synodal decisions are proper. A synod cannot distort or abolish the Tradition it has received.

Dear brother StuartK,


But how can you be so sure they were not adopted before that time by the clergy and laity? It seems rather logical that, if they did adopt them before that time, it would and could only be formalized once their status was restored. Because of that, I'm not convinced of your position.


If it was and their Synod decided to return to the ancient practices, then they must follow the decisions of their Synod, which is the highest authority in a sui juris Eastern or Oriental Catholic Church. If they didn't, they must also follow the decisions of their Synod.


By this statement, I suppose you are supportive of the Old Calendarist and Old Believer Schisms in EO'xy, and that the Church that these groups reacted against have "distort[ed] or abolish[ed] the Tradition it has received?"

Blessings

Through the late 1940s, according to Bishop Florian of Cluj-Gherla, the Greek Catholics were identical in faith and praxis with the Orthodox. In fact, in the countryside, where each village had just one or two churches, there was a considerable degree of intercommunion, which would not have been possible if the Greek Catholics were visibly different from the Orthodox. Even today, out in the boonies, a lot of these latinizations have not taken hold.



One reason for the adoption of Latin practices appears to be the desire to be more faithful to the Catholic Church. If the Greek Catholic are serious about that fidelity, then perhaps they should pay some attention to the instructions of the Holy See in this regard? The Catholic Church has been pretty consistent for the last 120 years on the need for the Eastern Catholics to restore their Tradition. The only reason for the Eastern Catholics to exist is to demonstrate the possibility of fidelity to Tradition while in communion with the Church of Rome. If they don't want to do that, they should pack up their tent and join the Latins. There is no third way.



The calendar is not part of the Tradition; the Liturgy is. If I take your argument to its logical conclusion, then the Greek Catholic Churches in Ukraine and Romania were legally abolished, since it was done so as the result of a legally convened synod.

LOL.

Ah, yes. The myth of progress. Went up in smoke up the chimney at Auschwitz, or should have, as the XXth century put into practice the theories of the XIXth on "progress."

No, I'm afraid "day and age" arguements do nothing for me, as the time element is utterly irrelevant as a rule. Progress, development of doctrine, modernism, all the same excuse. And the main fruit I see of the Enlightenment were the expansion of chattel slavery and its rationalization on a grand scale, and laying the groundwork of totalitarianism: the Terror was its apogee.

I also know Orthodox who lived in Poland in the interwar years, and those whose families hail from Carpatho-Russia, so I am well aware of what goes on in "this day and age." Why you cannot go to St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral of the Church of Poland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky_Cathedral,_Warsaw#Demolition
and what happpen to all the Lemkos before and after WWII. In Czechoslovakia, numerous Churches continued in the Return to Orthodox, for which St. Maxim Sandovich was martyred (is WWI and 1914 part of "day and age," or a "factor of the times?") along with others at Talerhof Concentration Camp 5, etc. and for which St. Alexei Kabalyuk was a confessor. With the fall of Communism, their Churches, which, having returned to Orthodoxy before the Soviet control of CS, came and were not forced into Orthodoxy (btw, in CS, the forced parishes were later given the option to go back to the Vatican), were taken, and the Orthodox were forced to have DL on the lawn: I've seen many home videos from the families "back home."

I also know about the situation in Ireland and Latin America, for example. Not much concern for pluralism there: Pope John Paul II made several pubic statements against the Protestants there, but my favorite was the Vatican's bishops in Peru, who came out against Fujiyama (their spiritual son) to aid the publically incestuous (proud enought to write a novel about it) opponent, because Fujiyama was solidly supported by the Pentacostals.

"Um, the Orthodox....were people of the time?" Sure this isn't projection? While the Vatican's monarchs were forcing "union," Paul Menesius, who was forced out of Scottland for his devotion to the Vatican, petitioned the Czar for a church in Moscow, which was granted. When the empire's borders changed, people were not forced to change their faith. In Ukraine, the failed "union" predated the arrival of the Czar: in fact, it led to Metropolitan Job of Kiev's invitation to the Czar in 1625, two years after the Sejm recognized the failure of Brest and legalized Orthodox bishops, at least on paper. St. Peter Movila (a Romanian Metropolitan of Kiev with a Hungarian princess as a mother, and a Latin education in the West, whose catechism had to have its latinisms edited out) was anything but a "Russian agent." When the Czar took Latvia and Estonia from Sweden (who, with the German Teutonic knights in the Northern Crusades had driven the Orthodox who predated them from the region), the Lutherans were not forced to convert, and when Finland (from which the Swedes, at the Vatican's bidding, had driven the Orthodox, the original evangelizers, out. The Orthodox survived in remote areas, as far as Njávdán/Neiden, Norway, where the Orthodox Sami have worshipped at St. George's since 1565) was annexed, the Lutheran church remained the state church there, their bishops, for the first time in is history, becoming the governing body. The conversion of Latvia came mostly in 1840, when converts petitoned for, and were given, Churches in Latvian (the German character of the Lutheran church there contributed to this). The Estonian Orthodox also date from the same movement. The finnitisation of Finland took place under the Czar, helped by the Finnish Orthodox who had survived the Swedes in Karelia, on whose folklore the national epic Kalevala was based, and whose use of Finnish inspired the Fennoman movement.

Followers of the Vatican didn't come in great numbers until the borders included Poland. There, the bigger problem for the Vatican was that Stanislaus Siestrzencewicz, who became the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg for her followers, was allowed to act without interference, er, supervision, from the Vatican. On another topic on point, I'll quote the "Catholic Encyclopedia":
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13253a.htm
"The sound principles of Catholicism, however, were maintained and propagated by the Jesuits who, suppressed by the Holy See and exiled from the Catholic nations, found an asylum and the centre of their future revival in Russia. In 1779 Catharine II invited the Jesuits to exercise their ministry in White Russia, and in 1786 they had in Russia six colleges and 178 members. Their number increased so much that Pius VII re-established their order for Russia, where it returned to life under Father Gruber. In 1801 the society had 262 members, and 347 in 1811. The Jesuits retained a lively gratitude for the hospitality that they had received in Russia, and worked with zeal to convert it to Catholicism."

It would seem that the lessons of Catherine II are not lost on the present Patriarch of Moscow. The marytdom of St. Peter the Aleut in San Francisco I guess can be included as "lively gratitude."

The non-Orthodox did move with the borders: Lutherans and followers of the Vatican were in Russian America. Sitka's Lutheran parish dating from when it was the capital was deeded by the Czar to the congregation when he sold Alaska. It was built when St. Innocent was Orthodox bishop, who allowed Polish priests to come into the colony to serve the Vatican's communicants there.

No, the Orthodox did NOT seek submission to the Vatican as protection against the Calvinists in Transylvania: they had been under the Calvinist Superintendent as demanded by Rakoczy. The Orthodox Metropolitan Stephan used the Calvinst insistence on the vernacular to produce an Romanian Orthodox Psalter and New Testament and Romanian services. Wallachia finished this in the Bucharest Bibe, and provided response in Romanian to the Calvinist catechism. The Protestants also did the service of putting pressure on the successor Met. Theophilus, who was also in trouble with the Orthodox over his private behavior and his administration of the Church. The Protestants supplied a counterbalance to the pressures eminating from Vienna (which had reintroduced both the hereditary rule (the Protestants were elected) and the Vatican supremacy): Met. Theophilus sought the "union" as an escape from his problems, but the Orthodox opposition, and his death necessitated the emperor and cardinal of Hungary to jump the gun and proclaim union, over and over again, for three years. Theophilos' protogee who took part in the "union" talks, Athanasius Angel, instead of seeking ordination from the cardinal, went to be consecrated by the Metropolitan of Bucharest, Athanasius swearing an oath of fidelity to the Orthodox Church, which he repudiated on his return. The Patriarch of Jerusalem Dositheus, who convened the Synod of Jerusalem against the Calvinist and was well familiar with Trent, was in Bucharest (he wrote the preface to the Bucharest Bible, the first complete one in Romanian) and wrote detailed instructions to Athanasius-in particular
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZhjZAAA...ist&f=false
pp. 40ff.
Athanasius even had to protest the emperor's rescript of 1699, as it cast doubt on the benefits promised. Athanasius ended up getting his promised royal salary, but the other "benefits" were not forthcoming: the Romanians were subordinated in all particulars to the cardinal of Hungary, and a Latin minder, called the "causarum generalis auditor," had to attend, guide and approve all actions. Contact with Romanians in Wallachia, Greeks or Serbians was strictly forbidden (the Romanians sought cover under the Serbian Orthodox bishop of Karlowitz, the only legal one in Austro-Hungary). The Magyars and Saxons made sure that the civil equality was not granted, and so by 1730 most of the laity who had joined (not to be confused with the majority of the laity) left. Most of the clergy who had joined (not to be confused with most clergy) would have left, had the new bishop Innocent Klein manage to get some of the promised rights. The Saxons and Hungarians would later succeed in getting the Vatican to depose him, and in fact the full rights promised did not become a reality until 1850, when the Romanian Orthodox Church was rising, and surrounding Transylvania. Such was too little, too late, and Austro-Hungary was forced to finally allow the return of a Romanian Orthodox Metropolitantate of Transylvania in 1864 at Sibiu (whose independent German burghers helped), to which the majority of the Romanians of Austro-Hungary belonged, along with the other (Austrian) autocephalous Church of Bucovina/Czernowitz.

But back to Alba Iulia 1668-1701 (the multiple dates coming from the haphazard process of submission): it was not the Orthodox who sought the Vatican against the Calvinists, who dominated Transylvania with the other Protestants (and Unitarians), electing their own prince, but rather Vienna and the Vatican who sought the Orthodox to undermine the Calvinists.

As for Gudziak's book, it contradicts the account of Prof. Dimitry Pospielovsky, "The Orthodox Church in Russia," p. 93.
"The laity, the parish clergy, and particularly the brotherhoods refused to accept the union with Rome. The protest movement developed and spread quickly, joined at first by a single bishop, Gideon (Bolodan) of Lvov. The Polish King gave in to these pressures and authorized the convening of a local council of those bishops, clergy and laity of the Roman and Greek Church who accepted the papacy --i.e. those who did not accept the Unia were not invited.

The Council met in the city of Brest on October 6, 1596. In order to prevent a parallel Orthodox council in any of the numerious Orthodox Churches in the city, the now Uniate Metropolitan of Kiev sealed all Orthodox Churches on the day before the Council was to begin, except for the cathedral where the Council was to take place. The Orthodox, nevertheless, converged on Brest as well, with prince Ostrozhskii and his private army at the head. Failing to find an open church, and after waiting in vain for an invitation from the Uniates, they accepted an offer of a Protestant church school for a separate Orthodox Council. The Uniate Council passed a resolution excommunicating all the Orthodox clergy and laity participating in the Orthodox Council. The Orthodox in turn suspended all the clergy and lay participants in the Uniate Council and addressed a petition to the King, asking him to deprive "the traitors" of their dioceses and parishes. But the Polish King decided otherwise: his edict of October 15, legalized only those Byzantine Rite Christians who joined the unia: it decreed the Orthodox Church null and void and all its clergy excommunicated; while continuing membership in the Orthodox Church was declared to be an act of treason against the state."
http://books.google.com/books?id=2cP0wc_...;q=&f=false

History makes me suspicious of statements that "the Holy See was largely ignorant of what was happening in Eastern Europe, and the critical initiatives were taken by people on the spot, often in ways in opposition to established policies." Innocent III claimed he was innocent of the Fourth Crusaders' sack of Constantinople, but he helped himself to the benefits thereof, formalized by Lateran IV. I come from the neck of the woods where the "union" was actually as peaceful and volunary as they come, but we do recall that when the Vatican came to assert its authority in Antioch and Jerusalem it expelled the Orthodox patriarchs and in the latter case did so knee deep in blood in 1099, making little or no distinction between Orthodox and Muslim, Orthodox Church or mosque.

Is there a link?

Only in Romanian:

http://www.bru.ro/blaj/pozitia-bru-fata-...-si-religioase/

The Romanian challenged:

PRESS: The position of the Greek Catholic Church in face of the declared intention Romanian Orthodox Church to support legislation for cultural and religious cleansing in Romania.

The Romanian Church United with Rome (Greek Catholic) received with concern the communication of the Romanian Patriarchy of September 29, 2009 , which incites interdenominational hatred and supports the process of cultural and religious cleansing to which the Greek Catholic Church is subjected in Romania.

Said communique affirms that Greek-Catholic Church would like "to take ownership of Orthodox religious sites in the hope of snatching up the Orthodox believers who attend them", and then concludes that the Romanian Patriarchate will continue "to raise awareness among state authorities to adopt legislative measures and to develop practical solutions to solve patrimonial disagreements between the two Romanian Churches in accordance with the religious reality of the territory.

"The religious reality of the territory", to which the Romanian Patriarchate makes reference, is the result of 40 years of unjust Communist persecution against the Greek Catholic Church, followed by another 20 years during which the Greek Catholic community was subject to a systematic process of cultural and religious cleansing in Romania.

Among the actions taken after the fall of communism with a view of eliminating the Greek Catholic Church from Romanian religious life remember:
- Harassment, intimidation, even death threats to the Greek Catholic believers to not to declare and manifest [their] confessional affiliation.
- Intimidation and mockery of Greek-Catholic children in schools;
- Refusal of Orthodox priests in several localities to allow burial of Greek Catholics in cemeteries;
- Psychological terrorizing of Greek Catholic communities even where we left Orthodox brethren in our churches;
- Incitement to hatred against Greek Catholics in political or religious speeches;
- Physical intimidation and aggression against Greek Catholic priests;
- Greek Catholic churches kept closed while our faithful pray in the streets, schools, warming centers or private homes;
- Demolition or destruction of Greek Catholic churches;
- Romanian State authorities' refusal to enforce judicial decisions that are in our favor.

The declared intention, on the eve of presidential elections, of the majority Orthodox Church to support legislation of the effects of these actions directed against the Greek Catholic Church minority is troubling.

After 20 years of the Revolution in December 1989 and the reinstatement of the legality of our Church, it is difficult to understand why the Romanian Patriarchate continues to challenge the property rights of the Greek Catholic Church and through misinformation foment public opinion against the Greek Catholic faithful, presenting them straightfowardly as greedy for Orthodox churches and believers.

The Greek Catholic Church claims in the [final] analysis only those places of worship and properties of which she was abusively stripped by the communist state in 1948. Appeal to justice is the solution adopted by the Greek Catholic Church in order to get rights that follows the Romanian state's refusal to repair the injustice of 1948 and the Romanian Orthodox Church denial of any form of cooperation to resolve this situation.

The Greek Catholic Church has shown proof of good faith by offering the few churches that he has recovered for alternative celebrations Orthodox communities where they do not have their own church. Unfortunately, the Romanian Patriarchate refuses this solution, while in Western Europe it does not find any obstacle to celebrate alternative religious services in churches which the Catholic Church provides them.

The Romanian state has the obligation, competence and moral duty to legislate the restitution of the property confiscated from the Greek Catholic Church by the communist regime.

We ask Romanian politicians not to make the violation of property rights and freedom of religion a campaign issue.

The cultural and religious cleansing to which Greek-Catholic Church and its faithful are subject in Romania must cease, leaving room for genuine democracy where the rule of law prevails.

Press Office of the Archdiocese Major - Blaj

This behaviour of the Romanian Orthodox Church is shameful.

I hope to read here posts of Orthodox users that condemn this behaviour